illed. He would not leave the depths of azure for the
wastes of the desert, or attempt to fix pathways over the treacherous
waves of sand, which the winds, in exulting irony, delight to sweep over
the traces of the rash mortal seeking to mark the line of his wandering
through the drifting, blinding swells.

That style of Italian art which is so open, so glaring, so devoid of the
attraction of mystery or of science, with all that which in German art
bears the seal of vulgar, though powerful energy, was distasteful
to him. Apropos of Schubert he once remarked: "that the sublime is
desecrated when followed by the trivial or commonplace." Among the
composers for the piano Hummel was one of the authors whom he reread
with the most pleasure. Mozart was in his eyes the ideal type, the
Poet par excellence, because he, less rarely than any other author,
condescended to descend the steps leading from the beautiful to the
commonplace. The father of Mozart after having been present at a
representation of IDOMENEE made to his son the following reproach: "You
have been wrong in putting in it nothing for the long ears." It was
precisely for such omissions that Chopin admired him. The gayety of
Papageno charmed him; the love of Tamino with its mysterious trials
seemed to him worthy of having occupied Mozart; he understood the
vengeance of Donna Anna because it cast but a deeper shade upon her
mourning. Yet such was his Sybaritism of purity, his dread of the
commonplace, that even in this immortal work he discovered some passages
whose introduction we have heard him regret. His worship for Mozart was
not diminished but only saddened by this. He could sometimes forget
that which was repulsive to him, but to reconcile himself to it was
impossible. He seemed to be governed in this by one of those implacable
and irrational instincts, which no persuasion, no effort, can ever
conquer sufficiently to obtain a state of mere indifference towards the
objects of the antipathy; an aversion sometimes so insurmountable, that
we can only account for it by supposing it to proceed from some innate
and peculiar idiosyncrasy.

After he had finished his studies in harmony with Professor Joseph
Elsner, who taught him the rarely known and difficult task of being
exacting towards himself, and placing the just value upon the advantages
which are only to be obtained by dint of patience and labor; and after
he had finished his collegiate course, it was the desi